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Topic: How do you launch stuff? (Read 80641 times)

Martin Aignesberger - author of WebSite Watcher, Local Website Archive, AIM-Notebook, AM-Deadlink, and very generous friend of DonationCoder - has just released Portable Start Menu, a freeware launcher for USB sticks:

Portable Start Menu is a simple and free start menu application that can be installed on USB sticks or local PCs.

Organize your programs in a simple menu system and launch them via a tray icon. If you close Portable Start Menu on an USB-Stick, running applications can be closed automatically, too.

Main features:

* Organize and launch applications via a tray menu * Closes running applications on USB-Sticks automatically * Checks if an application has been changed before execution * Runs on USB-Sticks without leaving any traces on a host PC * Portable Start Menu is Freeware

I've been scrolling true this topic but there was no mentioning of Hidden Menu.You can download it here: http://www.snapfiles.../get/hiddenmenu.htmlThis is freeware, only 373kb and very convenient to use. So I can recommend it for starting everything you wish, whit only 1 mouse click.

I tend not to use the mouse to launch things, since I find the keyboard to be so much quicker. I've tried almost every launcher program out there for almost 2-3 months apiece (Launchy, Slickrun, FARR, etc.) and have found Keybreeze (www.keybreeze.com) to be about the best there is. I haven't found anything that does as complete of an indexing of programs and as well provides an easy way to add custom commands.

Hmmm an awful lot of them aren't there I'm using FARR, I haven't discovered many of its uses yet, its mainly a program launcher for me still, and I dont understand these aliases or regex and all the techie mumbo jumbo , looking forward to the packs when that is all set up.

I use a series of about 6 toolbars for different major program categories on my desktop and I put the program shortcuts in the appropriate toolbar. I have about 400 desktop shortcuts which are one click away. I arrange these in subcategories within each toolbar. I put my major programs (those I always use) on my quick launch toolbar.

I mostly use PowerPro because it's the only one I know. FARR sounds like its worth a look since so many of you use it. PowerPro is cool because it is so configurable and yet easy to use. I've got a small tiny toolbar full of icons on autohide that pops up if I move the mouse to the top of my screen. It pops up in the middle of the whatever maximized window is on my screen and usually doesn't block anything. It's working fine on Vista. Each icon can hold three programs (L,M,R mouse clicks). The program can do all other kinds of programmable things, but I use it solely to launch apps. It's become kind of like a tiny QuickLaunch on steroids for my system.

though i find that FARR gets slower the more directories you add to it.For example i have all my portable/standalone/no-install programs in C:\Programs, and when i try to find something in it, it takes too long.Another issue is i don't know when it's done searching.

sometimes then i switch to Copernic desktop search to find programs. though if a better alternative exists i might use that. CDS acts like my giant magnifying glass to find anything i ever need!

I use Control Runner which is simple to set up and easy to use though it hasn't been updated for a couple of years. Before that TrueLaunchBar which is quite complex to set up; also tried ObjectDock which looks good.

PowerPro has a FARR-style "Run Box Tiny" built into it as shipped, and there's a more powerful version in a script called Advanced Run Box, ARB. I've briefly tried the latter - and it looks like a whole lot more work than FARR...

I like Launchy so I can search for any program without having to wade through the millions of items in my Start menu. When opening frequently used programs, I am surprised that no one mentioned FSL Launcher . I like it because it is easy to open it by holding your cursor in a corner of your screen. It is simple to add tabs and all you have to do to add items is to drag and drop a shortcut from your desktop or start menu.

Here yah go, Sri. This is the left half of my widescreen. That's the PowerPro toolbar at the top with all those tiny icons. I used Truelaunch for a while, but it irritated me just like Quicklaunch did as it kept popping up when ever my cursor hit the screen side. PowerPro is small enough and out of the way enough so that that doesn't happen.

But PowerPro is not plug and play easy. It took me a little while to configure the placement of the toolbar and to figure out how to get icons on it. There is plenty of documentation, but it's one of those programs that does so much that it takes a while to extract the information you want from the documentation. For someone who loves to fiddle with configuring things though, the payback is well worth it. I think I read at the site that the author was stopping further development of it.

I use the Quick Launch toolbar and classic Start Menu in XP and have never found anything to be superior. I think one reason people don't use Quick Launch more is that they place the taskbar at the bottom, where it takes up needed viewing area. Particularly with widescreen monitors (which I detest), there's no reason not to have the taskbar at the right, where Quick Launch is more usable.

The way I launch things is with a toolbar on my desktop and with a program called Hotkeys. The toolbar is easy to make just make a folder on the desktop and name it whatever you want then drag it to the edge of the screen and drop it. Then put all the desktop shortcuts in this folder and instant launch bar. I have mine set to always be on top and auto hide just move the cursor to the edge of the screen and the bar appears. The program is a keyboard mapper. Its available at http://qliner.com/hotkeys/overview.htm

Yes, that's what he has said but, he is still very active in their forums and I've seen quite a few updates since he "quit". Powerpro is my all-time favorite utility. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve if you want to extract the full capability. But, using PP, I've been able to get rid of a bunch of other utilities such as a clipboard extender, window manager, virtual desktop manager, macro util, launch bar, sticky note app, and more. Powerpro is doing all this and it's currently using only 1,216K of memory.

I see I am not nearly geek enough for this group. I find the standard Windows QuickLauch bar to be sufficient for the majority of stuff I use regularly. I supplement that with Hotkeys for those that I use the most (a program that is not supported nor updated but continues to work so I continue to use it) and Find and Run Robot for those used less frequently.

You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.